Natural Hazard Risk Assessments for Improving Resilience in Europe

ENHANCE issued a policy brief that pledges policy-makers to take action to improve Europe’s resilience to natural hazard.

During the past decades, the frequency and economic damage of natural disasters has increased sizeably both worldwide (Munich Re, 2014) and in Europe. A number of major disasters took the stage in Europe, prompting high economic damage and losses, casualties and social disruptions. Examples are the 2010 eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland; earthquakes in Italy in 2009 and 2012; droughts and forest fires in Portugal in 2012; heavy rainfall that caused record floods in Central Europe in 2013; and a hail storm that hit France, Belgium and Western Germany in 2014 and caused about €3.5 billion damages (Munich Re, 2015).

Natural disaster risks and losses in Europe are of high policy and citizen concern. Worse, they are expected to further rise as a result of projected demographic development and land use change, with expansion of residential and production activities in disaster-prone areas. Climate change has been demonstrated to have already increased the frequency and severity of certain extreme climate and weather related events, such as droughts, heat waves and heavy precipitation(IPCC, 2012; IPCC, 2014). These phenomena will further unfold as the human induced climate change will become more pronounced. Hence, it is imperative to take action on disaster risks to improve resilience of European societies to natural hazards…

Note to readers:

The ENHANCEpolicy brief is a project deliverable (D.9.2). In the next months, we will publish additional policy briefs. So stay tuned for more in-depth recommendations.